


I’m Here

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Fluff, Gen, Guardian Angel Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, Kidnapped Castiel, Sam Rescues Castiel, Sam has Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 10:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19926397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: One time Cas was there for Sam.One time Sam was there for Cas.One time they were both there for each other.





	I’m Here

The nightmares went away for a while.

Long enough to let Sam think they’d gone for good, but of course he should have known better.

When they came back, it was like being jumped in the dark, out of nowhere, and he clawed his way screaming to wakefulness.

He was lucky those first few times. Dean had either drunk enough that he didn’t hear Sam’s distress (and that worries Sam, not because he could have used some comfort from his brother - he has no plans to tell Dean of the dreams - or because it means Dean wouldn’t have heard anybody breaking in, but because he’d like to have his brother around well past his sixties if he can).

But when Cas joins them, either on the road, or comes home to the bunker between hunts or trying to fix Heaven (he’s always so exhausted after that, he and the other angels taking it into turns to serve as batteries before being released to ‘recharge’) then it’s a different matter.

Cas sees through him like he’s made of glass, and Sam knows even before he goes to sleep that the jig is up.

He’s not surprised to feel a cool hand on his forehead even before the nightmare starts, and all the shadows and the fear, and the haunting, mocking voice just fade away like mist at daybreak.

He opens his eyes and Cas is looking down at him, sad, worried, so _hurt_ , for him, that it’s impossible to say who’s comforting who when Sam pulls the angel into his arms.

Each night, thereafter, as long as Cas is there, he waits until Dean’s turned in and then spends the night in Sam’s room, sitting by the bed, a guardian angel keeping bad dreams at bay.

On those nights when he can’t be there, he leaves Sam a feather from his wings, and while Sam can still feel the nightmares creeping around him, they never get close enough to be trouble, held back by the love and protection of the Winchester family angel.

++

Blake’s blood is still tacky on Sam’s skin when he kicks open the door to the back room.

The room is brilliantly lit, the harsh gleam of several bare bulbs illuminating every corner, burning away even the most meagre of shadows.

It shows Sam instantly what he came here for, who, and he wants so very badly, then, to resurrect Blake and kill him all over again.

In the middle of the room is a long glass box. It’s padlocked on the outside, sigils carved with precision into the brass.

And inside the box is their angel.

Cas is pushing against the panes with all his might, but the box is on a two foot high plinth and the plinth is in the centre of an elaborately drawn magic circle.

Sam recognises the markings that form it; those same markings held Lucifer prisoner once, while he’d possessed Cas, and if they can hold an archangel even for a few minutes, they’ll definitely leave a seraph helpless.

And then Cas sees Sam, and Sam can read his name on the angel’s lips, but he can’t hear it.

The box is soundproof.

Sam covers the distance to it in a few wide steps, and dumps the clip from his gun. Everybody who could try to stop him is dead, now; he needs a blunt object, not a weapon.

Rendered safe, he uses the butt to smash open one padlock after the other, and then rips the glass lid up and shoves it open.

Cas sits up, unsteadily, and Sam grabs the front of his coat to stop him slumping back and cracking his head open.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Cas, you’re okay, I’ve got you. Can you get up?”

It takes them both to get him on his feet, and keep him there, and in the end Sam has to almost lift him out of the case and carry him beyond the imprisoning circle.

But as soon as they’ve cleared it, he can almost feel the power unfurl in the angel, and grace gleams through his eyes.

“You okay?”

Cas looks back at the case, and Sam can only imagine; Cas had been trapped in there for nearly two days, and he figures after this the angel will have his own nightmare material.

Locked in a glass box while people came to gawk at him and make bids for his ownership.

Sam gently guides Cas’s jaw around until the angel is looking at him.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and turns Cas to the door. “Let’s go home.”

++

It’s over. Sam knows it. Dean’s sleeping now, not dying, not suffocating as a curse bomb steals the oxygen out of his lungs, his blood, leaves him shaking and fighting on the floor, trying to find air when it just drained right out of him the minute he breathed it in.

It took both of them, he and Cas, to save Dean. Cas using his Grace to heal, and heal, and heal Dean, keeping his body on the cusp while Sam destroyed the object, hammering it into dust.

But the time he was done, Cas’s Grace had fully healed Dean, repaired every inch of damage, and he was holding Sam’s panting, confused, brother against his chest.

He’ll be okay.

But still, there’s that part of Sam that doubts. That’s too scared to believe it, because he’s let his guard down before and some of those wounds are the worst, and some have never healed.

Cas, maybe, feels the same. He’s sitting on one side of Dean’s bed, Sam the other, and they both know he hates being watched like this, will probably yell at them both when he wakes up.

And it is when, not if.

All the same, Sam knows he won’t be able to leave the room until Dean does wake up, and it’s easy to see Cas feels the same.

They came so close to losing Dean, today. Too close, and Sam finds himself reaching out across his sleeping brother to the angel.

Cas doesn’t take his eyes off Dean, but he slips his hand into Sam’s and holds on.

They still are when Dean wakes up, and looks at them both, tired but mischievous, and then just goes back to sleep.

Sam groans. No doubt, when Dean wakes up, he’ll tease the shit out of them both.

But it’s worth it.


End file.
